CLIMATE PROTECTION ACTION FUND
Taking a grassroots message-hundreds of thousands strong - to the Senate

The Challenge

Special interest groups were armed and ready to block the path of clean energy. The U.S. Senate was working on a clean energy bill that could potentially create millions of clean energy jobs and help rebuild a struggling economy. In the meantime, lobbyists for big oil companies were putting their significant strength and enormous pressure on Senators to oppose the bill. With a limited budget that paled in comparison to big oil, how could we get the attention of Senators through actions of their constituents? We would need to mobilize fast to reach hundreds of thousands of constituents in a compressed time frame to make an actionable difference.

The Stones' Phones Solution

We developed and executed a broad scale, national patch-through program ensuring that Senate decision-makers would hear directly from voters at critical moments as the bill was debated. Through sophisticated equipment and advanced technologies, Stones' Phones is uniquely capable of actively engaging enormous pools of people – in this case reaching hundreds of thousands at a rapid fire rate. A deluge of support for clean energy was pouring out from communities across America – in an unmistakable, unified voice.

Our strategy entailed reaching out to this very large pool of constituents, giving them the opportunity to follow through with an immediate patch-through call to their Senator’s office. Research, preparation and laser-like attention to detail were critical to accomplishing a campaign of this magnitude.  

Extensive research, coupled with Stones’ Phones know-how and experience, helped to define and fine-tune the messaging. The well-researched messaging hit the nail on the head in clarifying the issue and making an impact with legislators.

Our team understands that wonkish, policy-heavy jargon would be lost on voters. So instead, we simplified the messaging to a more basic approach: Would you be willing to tell your Senator that you want to protect the climate? Once the caller was patched-through, we gave them easy-to-understand instructions on what to say once they reached a lawmakers office - and how to say it. We patched through only the people that understood the process, and were fully prepared and ready to correctly relay the position – our patch-throughs were about quality and not just quantity.

The Result

The sophisticated and time-tested infrastructure of Stones' Phones is designed to be able to accommodate the massive call volume needed for a client on the national scale of the Climate Protection Action Fund. Not only could we ramp up quickly, but our national program resulted in over 300,000 completed calls and over 66,000 patches, producing an overall patch rate of 22%.This was a substantial rate of return for a nationwide calling program. It was this groundswell of calls generated in a short period of time that got people talking about this critical issue.  

Stones' Phones used a combination of smart targeting, effective scripting and strategic implementation on the campaign. Unfortunately, despite enormous team work to pass comprehensive clean energy and climate legislation, the effort fell short. But success came from a grassroots movement, with constituents willing and able to directly contact their Senator’s offices. Hundreds of thousands of folks across the country had a chance to tell the elected officials exactly where they stood on clean energy – as the fight to protect our environment continues. 

Click to learn more about patch-through calls